Concluding the awareness campaign "Gaza Water" with the Palestinian Press House, to shed light on the water crisis through a press conference, field tours, and awareness workshops.
CMWU and the Press House Conclude the "Gaza Water" Campaign.
Gaza - CMWU and the Press House concluded the media campaign #Gaza_Water, whose activities continued for a full week, aiming to shed light on the catastrophic water situation in the Gaza Strip. The campaign's launch came at a time when the water situation in the Gaza Strip had reached advanced levels of deterioration, due to the siege continuing for 10 years, and the three Israeli wars, in order to draw attention to the crisis, and issue a call to the international community to consider its details, and contribute to providing appropriate solutions for it. The campaign, whose activities extended from 30 September to 5 October, targeted all segments of society and relevant bodies, from international and local officials, to residents, media professionals, and students.
A Call to the International Community
The campaign's activities began with a press conference, held with the participation of UNRWA's Operations Director Mr. Bo Schack, Deputy Chairman of the Water Authority in Gaza Mazen Al-Banna, Director-General of Health and Environment at the Environmental Quality Authority Bahaa Al-Din Al-Agha, Director-General of the Water Department at Gaza Municipality Maher Salem, Palestinian businessman Munib Al-Masri, and dozens of media professionals and social media activists. During the conference, tweeting on the hashtag (#Gaza_Water) or (#Gazawater) in Arabic and English took place, to draw local and international attention to the reality of the severity of the water catastrophe in the Strip. According to the hashtag analysis results, the campaign achieved high reach at the global level, with the general impression equivalent to raising residents' awareness.
The campaign's activities continued with distributing brochures to residents in public places, popular markets, and residential neighborhoods in Gaza city, with the participation of a team of young journalists. The brochures included important facts related to the water crisis, and the reasons that led to its worsening.
Field Tours
The activities continued with an extended field tour organized by the Press House, with the participation of a team including a group of emerging media professionals, to review desalination plants, rainwater collection sites, and water treatment in Gaza's governorates. During their field tour, the team visited CMWU, located in Al-Zahra city, central Gaza Strip, and toured its facilities accompanied by its Director-General Eng. Monther Shoblaq. During his accompanying of the team's members, Shoblaq briefly spoke about the necessity of raising society's awareness of the importance of water and its impact on the lives of community members, stressing the importance of the role media professionals play in achieving this.
The team's members continued their tour by reviewing the seawater desalination plant in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, and learned about its departments, how it operates, the areas that benefit from it, and its future development plans. The team then headed towards Khan Younis city, south of the Strip, to the rainwater collection basins in the west, where they learned about the most important stations the collected water passes through and the extent of the basins' width. The participants, in the fourth stop of their tour, learned about the nature of the operation of the sewage treatment plant located at the far end of Rafah city, south of the Strip, before concluding it with a visit to the Central Al-Bureij plant, currently being constructed as the largest sewage treatment project in Palestine.
Awareness Workshops
In continuation of the campaign's activities, the Press House held four awareness workshops in cooperation with Al-Hayat Wal Amal Association in Jabalia, the United Cultural and Social Association in Rafah, the Youth and Environment Association in Deir al-Balah, and the Communication Forum in Nuseirat, targeting 140 male and female residents of the marginalized areas in the Strip's five governorates. The workshops, in which CMWU's public awareness official Suhair Bayoumi lectured, included awareness activities, programs, and information. During the workshops, "Bayoumi" addressed the details and problems of water and sanitation in the Strip, before addressing the obstacles and challenges facing the water sector, as well as the temporary and strategic solutions to the crisis.
